This invention relates generally to gas treatment apparatus, and more specifically relates to apparatus for humidifying an anesthetic or other gas which is to be furnished to a patient in the course of medical treatment.
In the course of various medical procedures, gases, which may include anesthetic agents, are administered to patients undergoing treatment. In order to insure maximum salutary effects, it is desirable, if not necessary, to humidify such gas prior to furnishing same to the patient. Accordingly, various techniques for humidifying these gases are commonly utilized in the medical arts, and numerous devices have long been employed for such purposes.
While many of such prior art devices are quite effective for the cited function of humidification, such prior devices are often unduly complex and of commensurate high cost to manufacture.
Furthermore, the principles upon which much of the prior apparatus is based, are such as to generate relatively high back pressure during operation of same. While in principle it is thus desirable for the pressure drop across such devices to be relatively small--so that a patient's breathing might operate such device in a closed circuit--many of these prior devices have not enabled such an operation except by the introduction of additional and complex control elements.
In accordance with the foregoing, the present invention provides a gas humidifying device suitable for use in humidifying anesthetic gases or the like, which operates on simple and dependable principles, and which is of commensurate low cost to manufacture and which further provides simple, dependable, and highly effective apparatus for use in humidifying anesthetic gases and the like, creating very low back pressure in the gas circuit and therefore is operable by a patient's breath in a closed circuit.